Founded in 2002, the Society encourages the creation of watercolor at all skill levels and promotes interest, appreciation and enjoyment of watercolor and watermedia. Please feel free to attend one of our meetings. Monthly meetings are held on the first Wednesday of every month, at 10 a.m. at the Cincinnati Art Club, 1021 Parkside Place, Cincinnati, Ohio, unless otherwise noted.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Deb gave a warm welcome to everyone since last month meeting was canceled due to the winter weather.

The first order of business was to remind everyone that membership dues are due. They are $45andDeb would like everyone to fill out the membership information form that she sent by mail and email.

We had two new people join the club: Linda Henke and Nancy Beers. Both are students ofRhonda Carpenter.

Marilyn Bishop sent a message through Deb that we have several DVD’s missing from our Library. It’s important that when signing these outthat you list your name and phone number along with the title of the DVD. The DVD should only be signed out for a month.

There have been some problems with emails that are being sent to certain addresses ( fuse net, zoom town, cinci rr). This is due to someone hacking into to these email addresses.Rhonda said they might appear in your spam folder since they are trying to do a better job of screening mail throughthese accounts.

Scholarship:

Joan O’Leary announced that the ArtAcademyhad selected a talented young man who is a freshmanfor the scholarship. He will attend our May meeting to accept the award.

Workshop:

Christopher Leeper’s workshop is this weekend from 10 to 4 April 5,6, &7. There is still room if anyone is interested in join the group. Let Rhonda know after the meeting.

Feature Artist:

Joyce Grothaus is the feature artist this month. Deb would still like more people to volunteer to do this.

State of GCWS:

Deb’s goals for the club are to create an environment of companionship and camaraderie . She would like to have more interest from the members for volunteering for jobs and more interest in the Blog. Some of her goals for the club are to continue to have workshops and to have more members stay after the meeting for the paint sessions. The club’s accomplishments are having 2 workshops, purchasing a projectorand having high quality programs.

Deb also listed projects and the expenses that we have incurred:

KHAC art show- $8.

Evergreen show - $375

Workshop - $321

Programs - $1180

After meeting painting Session -$40 per month

Deb also thanked the core group of members that continue to show up at the meetings .

Treasurer Report:

Most of our income this month was from membership dues and the workshop. We also made a donation of $50 to Hospice for Mary Marxen.

Announcements:

The women’s Art club show opensApril 5 & 6 from 1-4 pm. Awards are presented April 7,1-4 pm. There are several members that made it into this show.

Southwest Indiana Art Guildshow opens Saturday April 6 from 5 -8 pm.

Deb was accepted into to the Georgia Watercolor Show. She is also starting beginning watercolor classes in her home on Monday evenings from 6 - 8 starting April 8.

Larry Sparks announced a call for artists for the Springfield Twp. Show the first weekend in May.

Diana Marra announced that she has a show opening in Wyoming at Bilog Bistro April 9 - May 5.

Shows:

We will have 2 shows this year. The first show will be a juried show at the Barn in June and the second show will be at Evergreen in Oct. You may enter 2 paintings for $10. We need volunteers to help hang the show, to type up title cards and programs, and also for refreshments for the reception.

Minutes by Kathy Kuyper

Program:

Roger Ross a member of the club presented the program on “ What you should know about watercolor paints”.

Roger gave us a lot of information on paints:what there made of, how they are made, color sources, and much more. I will try to give you a brief report on the program but there was so much information that it is difficult to cover it all.

He said paints are made of pigment, a binder, and a filler. The filler gives the paints the buttery substance. It’s important to look at the pigment numbers to know if it is a good paint.. You will find the pigment numbers on the tube such as PR83 for Alizarin Crimson.There will also be a number for color fastness.These numbers are roman numeral starting with I -V.The best pigments are the ones with a color fastness ofI or II.

Pigment colors come from several sources.

Earth - raw sienna, (heated it becomes burnt sienna)

Vegetable dye - rose madder

Powder mineral - Lapis blue

Man made color - Prussian blue

Roger went through each color giving us the history of the pigments, color fastness, and how it has changed over the years. Even now they are finding that some of the pigments such as cadmiums are potentially dangerous.

One of the paints he recommended was Daniel Smith for overall quality.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

For the second time, Christopher Leeper, award winning Ohio artist and past President of the Ohio Watercolor Society, came to Cincinnati to give a 3-day landscape workshop to the Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society members - April 5, 6, and 7, 2013.

Chris is a wonderful artist and a great teacher, sharing a lot of information in a fun and energizing way.

Those who were in the workshop learned how Chris paints his day landscapes and his night landscapes.

Daytime landscape demo in progress:

Nighttime landscape demo in progression:

Chris discussed and reiterated several things to help make us all better painters:

1) Don't use tube greens by themselves. Even if you have tube greens, mix something else in there to give you something different and think about your warms and cools when it comes to colors.

2) Check your values and put in your darkest darks early so you have a guideline of how dark you should go and how your medium values hold up when those darks are in the painting.

3) Put down some warm colors as an underpainting because you can always make a warm cooler (can't always make a cool warmer without getting muddy color).

4) When you do a value study, just use your regular pigments but grey them down a bit - that way you get to paint instead of doing black and white value studies with pencil or marker.

Diana Marra will have a Solo Exhibit at Evendale Cultural Arts Center, Opening Friday March 2 from 6-8. The Exhibit is called "A Taste of Asia" and will of course have Sake and Sushi in addition to the usual wine-and-cheese Opening fare. Exhibit is also open 12-4 on Sat. and Sunday March 3 & 4. Diana will offer a mini-workshop - "A Taste" - on Wed. March 14, 6:30-8, cost $20 / all materials provided in 3 versions of oriental-style painting. For more information contact Diana.

Diana Marra will also have an opening at Christ Church Cathedral, 318 E. 4th Street, Cincinnati "Flowers Everywhere" Thursday March 1 from 5:30-8 p.m. and will have a painting in the Cincinnati Art Club Associates Show at Parkside Place where we meet for GCWS, Friday March 2 6-9.